Estea: The Shadows Lengthen

Vorash's Tale

The Dark Priest Speaks.

11

MAR/09

In the meantime, Chen was interrogating the dying priest, who in his arrogance and pride was all too willing to talk.

“It was my master who revealed the path to me. In a vision. In a dream. And what does it matter that you slay me? You will not slay him. He is coming and one way or another your time is soon upon you.”

“Not that fool Sigurd,” spits out Vorash. “ I serve a greater lord. “He showed me the ways of the portal, deep within the Shadowlands and how I might open it. All it needed was innocent blood to be shed and lightning to feed it. Then we could pour forth to reclaim this land. It belonged to us long before Istarnia was even a nation. But no matter. All you have done is delayed the inevitable.”

Chen presses for more information. “Who is this ‘us’ you speak of? Do you mean the goblins?”

Vorash laughs again, bubbles of blood bursting on his lips. “That pathetic race. They are simply tools to an end.” At that, Vorash clenches his teeth in a bloody grin.

The name makes no sense to Chen. “You’ll have to do better than that,” he says, leaning brutally on the wounded priest.

But Vorash is already fading. His last words wheeze out of his gasping mouth, “Eshumbra take me…”

With those words the priests chest suddenly collapses, and Chen stands up in surprise as Vorash’s body is consumed by sickly black boils – leaving nothing but a foul slick of darkness on the ground where the priest once lay.